Urukagina's Reforms in Lagash: The First Recorded Reforms

Urukagina, now often read Uruinimgina, ruled the Sumerian city-state of Lagash around 2350 BC and left the earliest known record of a government reform. His inscriptions describe how he removed greedy officials, cut fees and protected widows, orphans and poor citizens from the powerful. They also contain the earliest known written word for freedom, the Sumerian amagi.

Background: Lagash before the reforms

Lagash was one of the leading city-states of Sumer, with its capital at Girsu (modern Tello) in southern Iraq. Under the dynasty of Ur-Nanshe it had grown powerful, fighting a long border war with Umma recorded on the Stele of the Vultures.

By the time of Urukagina’s predecessors, Enentarzi and Lugalanda, the ruler’s household had extended its control over large temple estates. Well over a thousand administrative tablets from Girsu show a highly organised economy of fields, herds, fisheries and workers. Urukagina’s texts claim that this system had become oppressive, with officials taking a share of everything.

Urukagina came to power around 2350 BC after Lugalanda. How he did so is unclear; he was probably not Lugalanda’s son. He ruled first with the title ensi, a city ruler, and from his second year as lugal, or king.

What the reform texts say

The reforms are known from inscriptions on clay cones and an oval plaque from Girsu, written in Sumerian cuneiform. They describe conditions “in former times”, then list what Urukagina changed after the god Ningirsu chose him as ruler.

Before, according to the texts, inspectors controlled the boatmen, the herdsmen and the fishermen, and took fees on livestock and fish. Priests and officials charged heavy payments for burials and other ceremonies, and the ruler’s household had taken over fields belonging to the gods.

Urukagina claimed to have dismissed the inspectors and tax collectors, reduced burial fees, and returned the estates to the temple households of Ningirsu and the goddess Bau. If a rich man wished to buy a poor man’s house or donkey, the poor man could no longer be forced to sell. The best known line states that Urukagina made a pact with Ningirsu that the powerful would not wrong the widow and the orphan.

One much discussed passage says that in earlier times women had taken two husbands, but now a woman who did so would be punished. Scholars still debate whether this refers to polyandry, remarriage or another practice, and translations differ.

Amagi: the first word for freedom

In the texts Urukagina says that he “established the freedom” of the citizens of Lagash, using the Sumerian term amagi (also written ama-gi or ama-ar-gi). It literally means “return to the mother”, probably referring to people freed from debt bondage going home to their families.

This is the earliest known written use of a word for freedom or liberty. In modern times the cuneiform sign group for amagi has been adopted as a symbol by some groups promoting individual liberty.

How historians read the reforms

The reform texts are written in a moral, almost religious tone, contrasting a corrupt past with a just present. Because they come from the ruler himself, historians compare them with the large archive of everyday administrative tablets from Girsu, which record rations, land allotments and workers in the household of the ruler’s wife.

These archives show real changes under Urukagina, such as the large household of the queen, Shasha (also read Sasa), being renamed as the property of the goddess Bau. Whether ordinary people felt much relief is harder to know, but the records suggest that the reforms were more than words.

Fall of Lagash

The reforms did not save Lagash. Within about eight to ten years of Urukagina’s accession, Lugalzagesi, ruler of Umma, attacked and sacked Girsu. A lament written in Lagash lists the temples he plundered and declares that the man of Umma had sinned against Ningirsu, while Urukagina had committed no sin.

Lugalzagesi went on to rule much of Sumer from Uruk, until he was defeated by Sargon of Akkad, who founded the Akkadian Empire.

Myths and facts

Myth: Urukagina issued the world’s first law code. No law code of his has survived; his texts are reform decrees in narrative form. The oldest known law code is that of Ur-Nammu of Ur, from about 2100 BC, followed by the Code of Hammurabi.

Myth: the reforms prove a democratic revolution. They were issued by a king in the name of a god. Some historians see them as genuine relief for ordinary people; others read them partly as propaganda to justify a new ruler who took power from the old dynasty.

Timeline

• c. 2500 BC: Ur-Nanshe founds the dynasty of Lagash.
• c. 2450 BC: Eannatum of Lagash defeats Umma.
• c. 2360-2350 BC: Lugalanda rules Lagash.
• c. 2350 BC: Urukagina takes power and issues his reforms.
• c. 2340 BC: Lugalzagesi of Umma sacks Girsu and ends Lagash’s independence.
• 1877 onwards: French excavations at Tello recover the reform inscriptions, now in the Louvre.

Why it matters

Urukagina’s inscriptions are the oldest surviving statement that a ruler’s duty includes protecting the weak from the powerful. Whatever his motives, they introduced ideas of justice, fair fees and freedom from debt that run through later Mesopotamian law and remain central to political thought today.